about nik

I am a maker.

I work with light, movement, weight, relationship, soil, seed. I work with my hands and my feet and my spine and my heart. My tools are cameras, a good sharp knife, a curious and improvising mind.

I pressed the shutter on my first camera in 1991

I performed my first choreography in 1997

I designed my first vegetable garden in 2006

I have been blessed to weave a life of work around these three passions. In collaboration, this work centers on the relationships themselves: between kingdoms, species, bodies, elements, cameras, stages, and screens. Sometimes the dance happens in a field, sometimes the dancers work with cameras while they are dancing,
sometimes I take photos of the food I've grown. I live a good life.
I try my best to honor the legacies of humanity, knowledge, and ecosystems that have
delivered me to these moments of creativity and inspiration.

None of us do anything alone, ever.

My approach to this partnering work is through tuning the perceptual agency of the participants--
the viewer, the performer, the chef-- and tuning my own attention to see what is possible
as the camera operator, the mover, the farmer.

I am concerned with the issues of consent and communication that permeate discussions in contemporary life, searching for the places where we can find ourselves vulnerable and explore intimacy to find empowerment. I seek spiritual, physical, and environmental healing from the destruction caused by imperialism and corporate greed.
I am body-positive, sex-positive, positively queer, and wary of toxic positivity. Sometimes I am also funny.

What can we share in this very moment? What is being offered? What is being taken?
How am I reciprocating the abundance I have been given? What do I need right now?

Above: excerpt from dance video, treehugger, (2018)

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